Serin fends off sister for women’s open title

The older Chung sister, Serin, bested the younger Irin in the women’s open finals of the 2024 White-Coconut Classic at the American Memorial Park tennis courts last Monday.

No. 1 seeded Serin made it to the last match on a not so ideal and windy day, but still managed to snag the win, 4-1, 5-4. The tourney’s Sunday games were rained out, so they had to cut each of the matches short with no deuces on Monday.

Their division was a round-robin format as there were only four players. Serin first went up against Hannah Chae earlier in the morning and lost a close 2-4, 4-2, 8-10 matchup. Before that, Serin cemented her first win in the division after taking down Savita Sikkel, 6-1, 6-0 last Saturday.

After the finals with her sister, the 17-year-old said her strategy “was to try and control the point to the best of my ability. It’s always a little nerve racking and very exciting to play my sister in tournaments.”

Serin said of the tourney, “I had a lot of fun in the tournament. Unfortunately, due to the rain, I had to play short sets in the second week but I still enjoyed it. It was a little challenging to play in windy conditions but I tried to work through it.”

As to who was the toughest matchup, she said all were pretty tough. “Each player has their own unique style and so I have to play a little differently with each of them.”

With the shorter game due to the weather and time constraints, she said she prefers a full game because the shorter sets tend to make her move nervous. “I feel like with full sets, if I am down the first couple of games, I still have time to come back but with short sets, there’s not much time.”

In the women’s open 3.0 finals, No. 1 seed Jin Hua defeated Vivian Chung, 4-2, 5-4. Hua won all four of her matches in their division’s round-robin format with five players.

The 2024 Coconut Classic began last Feb. 9 to Feb. 11, then from Feb. 16 to last Monday and was organized by the Northern Mariana Islands Tennis Association.

Results of the boys/girls divisions will be posted in the next issues of Saipan Tribune.